Dear Mr. President:

Five years ago, you told us you would “bring to justice” the perpetrators of 9/11.  Yet today, five years later, the man who is undisputed to have caused the 9/11 attack — Osama bin Laden — remains at large.  Instead of making it your mission — and that of the U.S. military — to capture or kill bin Laden, you have wasted America’s resources — and your own — on a wild goose chase in Iraq.  In the process, you have needlessly killed or maimed (both physically and emotionally) hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims.  We must assume that some of these people — or their spouses, parents, children, friends, etc. — will harbor extreme hatred toward America for this loss. 

Indeed, we should not think otherwise given our own extreme reaction to the 9/11 attack.  We must also assume that some of these angry people will, in some way, at some point in their lives, support violence against America.  Whether it is by strapping a bomb to their chest and blowing up a street market, or merely providing a safe house to someone who does, we cannot tell.  But we do know, for certain, that violence begets violence, especially when the violence is perceived as unjust — which is exactly how your invasion of Iraq and many other misguided policies are perceived. 

The Bible tells us to love our enemies.  This probably does not mean bombing their families and neighbors, perhaps because doing so merely creates …